Monday, March 30, 2009

Playing right now: My pal Erin on WYEP.I'm listening online while blogging, and I was on Facebook while listening, moments ago. I'm so technologically savvy at long last [sarcasm]

I saw AC Newman at the Warhol on Saturday night. My full review of the evening will appear on the Blurt website, hopefully, by the end of the week. So I won't say too much here. Suffice to say, it was a good time. Carl had a six-piece band including a violinist and keyboard player who doubled on trumpet.

I used to be completely uninterested in those Charlie Parker budget-line live albums that seem to pop up all over the place. The sound quality is often dubious and since I'm no longer a scholar of the alto saxophone, I didn't think I needed another version of "Hot House." But everytime I go to Jerry's, that whole series of live Bird records on Everest are usually there in triplicate, all for about $4 or $5 each. So when I was on vacation in February I picked up a couple of them, and was glad I did. The sound is so-so but I'm used to lo-fi, so when Bird is having a good night, his playing makes up for the lack of technology.Today I picked up an album called The Happy Bird on Charlie Parker Records. This one also looked like a knock-off cheapo. That is, until I saw who plays on it: Wardell Gray (an unsung tenor player with a very limited recorded output) and Richard Twardzik (who was the same to the piano, only his recordings are even smaller in number than Wardell's), besides Teddy Kotich and Roy Haynes. I haven't had time to play it yet, but maybe I will over breakfast tomorrow.There was also a Mingus album on Everest, which looks like it was some of his Debut stuff. Normally the purist in me shies away from these reissues, thinking that I'll eventually get the original album. Whether on CD or an original pressing, I prefer to have the artwork and liner notes. But I've reached a point where there's a good chance that I won't hear it if I wait to get the original so I ought to buy something like this. I even bought 2 Prestige two-fers last year for that reason.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

I think I turned a corner today, as far as my writing voice is concerned. I made a pun in a CD review. That's unprecedented. And puns usually rub me the wrong way. Nothing makes me think of lazy journalism more than hearing or reading "The Beatles are about to go down that long and winding road," or "David Bowie, once again, is going through ch-ch-ch-changes."OK, those aren't puns but they're not funny either. Or imaginative.Anyhow, I'm not going to tell you what said pun is, but when the review appears, I will link it. It's going to be on the Blurt website. Speaking of which, the magazine is about to do its first print issue. Everyone needs to go out and buy one. Someday it'll be worth lots of money. And in the meantime, you'll be helping to keep the institution of rock journalism alive and well. You think I'm kidding. Find my entry from this time last year about the death of Harp.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

I might've said it before in this blog, but I can't remember, so I'll say it again. It is my opinion that Simon & Garfunkel's version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is one of the most perfect songs ever. Artie sounds more like an angel than he ever had or ever would. When he goes for that last "Bridge" and hits that high note......[one hand on the forehead, the other on the heart], it just gets me. He just makes the weight of the lyrics believable, what one person would pledge to another.Except for that "sail on silver girl" line. But maybe Clive Davis made them put that in.The song is so good, nobody else should ever sing it. Nobody. It wouldn't be as good. And I'm sure some awful versions have been attempted (high school choirs, anyone??)Well, maybe Rufus Wainwright could do it justice.And my son. He's too young now, but I'm sure that some day he could pack the same emotional wallop.

On the other end of the spectrum, I heard one of the latest in an ongoing serious of awful modern Adult Contemporary songs at work the other day. I forget the singer's name, which is probably a godsend, but the song is called "Live." As in "live your life." The song was awful because it's one of those "my life is really really dull and I have nothing to say about it, but I'm going to keep on living" songs. She wakes up in the morning and there's a pizza box on the floor. She has to go work, where her boss is a jerk. Geez, too bad she didn't have to go to school to learn the golden rule, or gaze at the moon in the month of June.Maybe it's Jerry Seinfeld's fault - for being successful in a medium where nothing supposedly happens. All this banality is suddenly supposed to be interested. Well, it ain't. I want to find the chump who sang the song a few tracks prior to "Live" - the guy who sang "I wish the real world would get off my back" - and bump his head against this Jennifer's, and make them read a damn book and come up with something more imaginative to say than just how hard it is to do nothing in a boring world.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Back in September, I printed the first part of an interview with Bernard Stollman, the man behind ESP-Disk Records, the infamous underground label responsible for some of the first free jazz albums by the likes of saxophonist Albert Ayler, vocalist Patty Waters and pianist Paul Bley. The label also released the Fugs and Pearls Before Swine.Despite having done a good deal of groundbreaking for independent labels everywhere and documenting some important music that has stood the test of time, Stollman isn't patting himself on the back. He was the "editor of some cosmic publication." He wasn't even a music fanatic before starting the label.

Read on:

How old were you when you started the label?

34, 35. I went to my mother and I said, “Mother, I realize it’s kind of early in my life but I now what I want to do.” Of course I was being facetious. “I’m going to start a record label and I’m going to document this music. If I don’t do it, it won’t be done. It’ll be lost.”These people are at the peak of their maturity and somebody’s gotta do it. And I decided I’m going to be that person.In my own mind, I thought of the music publishers in Vienna, in Munich and Hamburg, Germany and Austria, who captured the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner. Without those publishers to capture the music and put it in print, I think that they would’ve been lost too. They did what they had to do, these publishers. I saw a parallel with what I was doing. Someone had to do it.I reinvented myself to do this. I took it on. Something I felt I could do. I didn’t have a wife or children. I didn’t have any responsibilities outside myself. I didn’t have any particular financial goals other than not starving. I didn’t have any grand tastes or appetites.

I thought I read that you had been a lawyer.

Well I had gone through law school during the Korean War. They called it the Korean police act. It was a war. A preemptive war. It was an American war. But that’s a whole other story.I decided that if I go to law school, I could avoid the draft. So I went to law school and when I finished law school, the war was over. And I had a profession. There was one small problem. I was fairly convinced that I had very few attributes that would lend themselves to a career in law. I wasn’t a naturally argumentative individual. I wasn’t particularly clever [laughs]. I despised the idea of litigation. And most work that lawyers did I saw as essentially humdrum. I didn’t feel fired up or inspired to be Henry Clay or Abe Lincoln. [Laughs]The closest I’ve come to any kind of a public vision is when I learned the international language [Esperanto], which was in 1960. It struck me as kind of a humanist thing, which the people who make up the movement are about. They’re not religious people. They’re humanist. Humanists as you know do not exercise religion.I was a little battle weary from all those years of school. College again – sit in more seats, look at more teachers? So I chased girls.

What kind of music were you listening to?

Totally unplanned, unprogrammed. I had no particular focus. None. I loved classical music, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to a concert. I wouldn’t say I was totally indifferent, but close to indifferent. Music itself did not appeal to me.The fact that I was in the army after law school and in Europe, I had an awful lot of free time and I could visit museums. And I visited many, many museums all over Europe And I picked up a lot of music concert halls in Paris – I had seven months in Paris – so I went to hear Yehudi Menuhin, caught the Red Beijing opera. I had some very, very diverse experiences there.

I thought you were going to say you grew up on bebop.

I would say my experience with music is not really indifferent, but I wasn’t really caught up in it. I didn’t play an instrument. As a young boy, I played the piano ‘till I was 13. I went through puberty and started high school and that was the end of it. Never touched the keyboard again. By the time I could play “Flight of the Bumblebee” and Chopin, I had had enough. That’s the sum total of my music career.I wouldn’t describe myself as a consistent devotee of any single sector of music. I did go to concerts in the Village in those first years in the early ‘60s. It was when folk music was having it’s time. I heard many folk artists. And that was easy to assimilate. They’re really down home they play and instrument and they sing. Not very much to think about.When it came to jazz, my exposure was very sporadic or not at all. I had heard the Adderley Brothers at the Half Spot. I thought it was very lovely. But I didn’t follow it.I recall in 1960 there was an album I heard, the famous concert of Parker, Gillespie…

Jazz at Massey Hall.

Yeah, and I was blown away by it. I thought, oh this is gorgeous. But again, I had a wide range of interests, if you will. And I didn’t focus on it.I remember one afternoon I was walking and on East 8th Street in the Village. There was a club rather set back from the street. It was a ground floor club. And some music came out. It was on a Sunday afternoon. And I thought, oh wow what is this. And suddenly Coltrane came through the door. To get some air, he was mopping his brow. He and Sonny rollins were playing. It was just beautiful.So I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy it. I just didn’t see it as the focus of my time and energy. I never pursued it. I spent a few nights on Mott street where Sam Rivers had his studio, Rivbea. But again I wasn’t devoted to it. I got exposed to it.But eventually I did get captured, finally. I know exactly what it was. It was Albert.

Albert Ayler? Was he the one that made you think, I’m starting a record label?

That did it.

What about him?

It was …. I didn’t think at all about it. I just experienced it. It wasn’t like I stopped and concentrated on what he was doing. It was washing over me, through me. It was a totally heartfelt cry and it was continuous. It went on and on nonstop until it ended. This man was saying something to me. He was saying a great deal. And I couldn’t put it in words. But he poured his heart and soul into it, and there it was. That’s one way of putting it. It was life or death for him. It was something he had to do. Not even talk about it. That sense o urgency, perhaps in retrospect, that caught me. That’s something to say. When I talk about music or describe where I’m coming from or feel I am, when I’m listening to him today: He had something to say.

Did you have a lot of people coming to court you or solicit you?

To some extent. I’m not swamped by auditions. One might assume I would be. It’s not widespread. But I’m swamped by music nonetheless. Catalogs, products, artists. It’s awesome what’s available to me now. Individual artists or archives, the whole thing has taken off to another dimension.I might have to change my concentration, my focus because what’s to be done about all this? Perhaps very little. Perhaps all I can do is what I could only do at the very beginning which was just [pause] oh…. I guess you could say just sample what was going on.These people… they’ve been making music all day long their whole lives! What was I supposed to do about that? You can’t document thousands upon thousands of hours of performing. So I did what I think was probably the one thing I could do. Which was sample it and get those samples out so people could hear them. Help them build an audience for themselves. Which was the most I could do, which was not very much. I didn’t have a booking agency. I didn’t have a promotions department. What I did was quite limited, very rudimentary, very limited, very small. But I did seem to grow legs. Because once you put a record out, people handle it, they copy it, they broadcast it and the word gets out.But to say I documented it? No! How can you document something that is the output of a creative human being? You can’t.

It’s kind of like a snapshot.

It’s all I could do. At best, and that’s all I could hope to do. I didn’t hope to create some kind of a vast documentary archive. What exactly is my life’s work – I’m not a historian. As such. No, I just wanted to inspire people.

Looking back at the catalog, is there anything you regret releasing?

That’s a very good question and I’ve thought about it, of course. And I answer you this way: There’s not a record that I would not reissue today of all the records I ever did. Now if there were one or two that I thought were not the strongest statement that the artist ever made, I will not admit it. [Laughs]I’m opposed to an autopsy, if you will, or revisit my judgment from those times. That’s for other people to do. I haven’t deleted a single record in 40-some years. If a record doesn’t draw attention or if it’s not as strong as it could be, then it’s a victim of fate.But I’m playing God enough as it is by singling people out and saying, Let you be heard. That’s a power trip in itself, which I have to watch out for. I have to appreciate it because I’m human. I’m not god. The work is godlike in that you single out some individual out of the crowd and say, “Here, you come along and we’ll record you.”So I have to try to be humble about this and recognize that I am a channeler if you will. I’m not making the music, somebody else is.If I were an editor and Hemingway came to me and I said to him, “You’re a brash young man. You’re obnoxious, a bully and loudmouth braggart, but your words are spectacular, so I’ll put you out.”That’s how I see myself - as the editor of some cosmic publication. That’s all I am. And that’s a worthwhile goal for me.I never had aspirations to play music or even be a public figure. And I accept the public figure role. It doesn’t move me. I get no thrill out of being identified or recognized. I found out a long time ago that seeing my name in print or being talked about did nothing for me. [Laughs] I got no kick whatsoever out of it.Did I get some pleasure out of seeing these artists rise and get some recognition? Yes, sure. But I don’t have an overblown ego. I hope not.It’s been one helluva a trip and I don’t suggest it to anyone. You pay a price for it. I forewent marriage, family, all the things that nature and God if you will seem to assign to us. Life functions, I’ve betrayed them.I didn’t pursue them and it’s given me the freedom to pursue what I did. And I don’t think I particularly deserve praise for it. And I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else. Ever. It’s a high price to pay.

But you’ve influenced a lot people by what you’ve done.Well, that’s a bargain I made with the devil. The only offspring I have is an idea. I helped to circulate ideas or awareness.

Playing right now: Wynton Marsalis - He and She (Blue Note)(That's right. I'm making a list of new releases that come to me so that when I'm trying to figure out what to listen, I'll put one of them on instead of reaching for... oh, you know something I've listened to a million times.This was at the top of the list. It's not too bad, so far.)

Last night I went to Howler's and saw three really amazing local bands. Even though I was beat by the time it was over (hell, I was nodding off in front of this computer right before I left), I felt really pumped by the music and excited that I was finally seeing new goings-on in the local scene.

I got there about halfway through Central Plains' set. It was pretty straight forward guitar-based stuff, with good drumming kicking it along. Plus, the last song of the set had a really great harmonized double-guitar riff. And one song had a really unexpected chord change in the chorus. I've been meaning to see those guys for a while because a friend from work is their bass player. Next time I'll catch a whole set.

The version of Lohio that played with my old band Mystery Date (aka the Mofones minus Sharon "Mama" Spell on that given night) was a work-in-progress trio, but the version I saw last night had a completely revamped lineup and a stronger attack. Great songs, good arrangements, cool keyboard fills, another song with unexpected chord shifts. Damn.

A few months ago I saw the Harlan Twins and got blown away, but I had to leave because I was pretty much falling asleep while on my feet. That night they sounded like a high energy indie rock band with a Rhodes. Last night, there was a little more of a boogie element going on, but it added to what was already pretty solid. James Hart has the hard rock intonation down during his guitar solos. Plus there was that pedal steel that he played. The other guitar player - whose name I didn't get - sang some great songs that were a nice break between James'. (He's another fellow team member, which is why I know his name.) A lot of their songs were epics, in terms of length and dynamics. I hope they record soon, or release something.

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Did a phone interview with Rudresh Mahanthappa today for JazzTimes. The kid should have been down for his nap, but he was awake and ornery so I bought some time with an avacado and a sippy bottle of milk. He ate the former and spilled the latter all over the place.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Today I filed two reviews with Blurt and we're now allowed to add a hyperlink to our bylines so that readers can be connected to our personal blogs, providing the writer has one. So you know what that means: gotta get moving and write more often. Tomorrow I'm off with Donovan all day, and I hopefully will be talking to Rudresh Mahanthappa during the kid's naptime. But maybe, just maybe I can find time to post the rest of the Bernard Stollman interview that I transcribed right around the time that I made the most previous post.

Funny, I wander around Facebook when I'm online and check my email, which only takes a few minutes, at most. And then I lollygag, which is precious time I could spend on this blog.

But none of this has anything to do with music, and I boo-hoo about it all the time. Consider it a sign of better things to come.

By the way, SXSW is going on now. I, the music writer, am not going. My brother, the guy who started the first punk band in Pittsburgh but doesn't play music and now works in advertising, is there. Where's the justice?

I'm what you'd call a music enthusiast. Not one of those obsessive people, but definitely fanatical about it. This blog began as a forum for whatever I am listening to throughout the day but I'm also trying to include full-blown CD reviews too.

About Me

UPDATED - 9/15/2018. Over the past couple years, most of the entries here have been focused on jazz, with fewer on indie rock or albums from my past that I've dug up. I'm not limiting myself to one style. But most of the music I receive is jazz and since there aren't a whole lot of jazz writers out there, I try to provide a forum for it. Regarding me, I've lived in Pittsburgh all my life and despise the people who live here who put it down because it says less about the town than it does about them. Until recently, I played bass and sang in a band called the Love Letters, who released a double 7" single. (Something else is sort of in the works but I'll keep you posted.) Prior to that, I played in Amoeba Knievel, the Fearnots and the Mofones. Previously I played in Bone of Contention (ever heard "Barbie Likes to Die"? People on the interweb have!), the Pundits, Paul Lynde 451 and Mystery Date. After several years of freelancing for Pittsburgh City Paper, I now write for the new Pittsburgh Current, which everyone should check out online or in print. Nationally I contribute to JazzTimes magazine.